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Lucasfilm to sell Physical Effects Unit — Page 4

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The traditional puppets of Yoda, despite their extreme limitations (and occasional awkward movements) looked far more realistic than the CGI Yoda. They were real physical objects that for the most part were believable. They weren't perfect, but they were good. The crapy CGI work done for the digital Yoda on the other hand made Yoda look as if he had liquid skin that unnaturally flowed all over his skull, and the surface of his skin looked like it was partially made of reflective alluminum.

Gollum, from the Lord of the Rings movies, had a much more realistic look to the skin and his face animated like a real person's face would. ILM just did a sloppy job with Yoda. I don't care if Yoda merged with the false-looking environments better.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Gollum was also an important character in the story who had a complete backstory and served to move the narrative forward via his actions.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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ILM had to match as close as possible to Frank Oz's performance in Episodes V and VI. It's totally different from what Weta did with Gollum. Technically, ILM could've gone pass the performance of Oz if they wanted to but they deliberately didn't.

And Gollum interacting and blending into his environment better than Yoda is very subjective. There are plenty of shots in The Two Towers were Weta didn't even get remotely close with blending in Gollum to the environment.

As far as using stand-in's compared to using Andy, that has to do with design. Most of the designs of the aliens in the Prequels are far more alien than the design of Gollum. Technically, Jackson could've gotten an extremely skinny person, apply plenty of make-up, and it would've worked just as good as the CG version of Gollum. It's almost impossible to find someone that skinny to match what they did with Gollum but it is possible.

Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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To me the CG Yoda looks more real than the puppet Yoda.

Puppet Yoda (while having a strikingly great performance for a puppet) never had very realistic mouth movement. Frank did work miracles to elevate the perfromance to what it was, and in the end I had no trouble rolling along with it, but I just have an eaiser time with the CG Yoda.
Your focus determines your reality.
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Again, from a performance standpoint, ILM was limited to what they could really do with Yoda. If Yoda hadn't been introduced via Oz's performance all those years ago, Yoda would've been different.

As it is, they had to match as close as possible to Oz's performance while enhance it every-so-slightly when it came to mouth region. And that's where you can tell he's CG, not anything else.
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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Seriously, the CG Yoda was bound to blend in with the CG sets, wasn't he? The CG Gollum had to be integrated with real location shots. I regard the achievement as being much greater on WETA's part.

As for matching the movements of Oz's puppeteering, I don't buy it. That sounds like an excuse. Hell, they'll probably go in and replace the original with their beloved CG version for next year's SEs anyway...
Don't you call me a mindless philosopher...!
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About matching Oz's performance, is not an excuse. Watch "From Puppet's to Pixels" and listen to the audio commentary of Episode II and Rob Coleman specifically states that after talking with Oz, the animators came to the realization that they technically could go beyond what Oz did, performance wise, but that would be a mistake. He wouldn't be Yoda. They purposely tried to match every move, every nuance that Oz did with that puppet, while "loosening" him up just a tad around the lips.

ILM and Weta both had difficult tasks because those two character had to intergrate with the live actors they came into contact with. Look at every scene with the two characters, they're always with a live actor for the most part.

I just personally feel that ILM did it better than Weta mainly because of lighting. As good as they are, Weta can't light for shit. Just look at the Rings Trilogy and Kong. They get it half right and half wrong all the time. With ILM, they tend to get it right 85% of the time.
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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First off, I love LOTR almost as much as Star Wars if not as much.

Secondly, Gollum really wasn't very good at all in FOTR. It may have only been the briefest of glipses in low light, but it still looks horrible (IMHO). It wasn't until after Peter Jackson and others went to hang out on the set of the prequels and swap CG implementation advice with Lucas and ILMers before they made him look as amazing as he did in TTT and ROTK.

That said the feat pulled off with the performance of Gollum even considering FOTR is nothing short of extrordinary.

When I first saw Yoda in AOTC, I was floored for 2 reasons. 1) It still looked like the puppet version from the classic trilogy, and 2) It did this without sacraficing more natural looking mouth movement.

To me, Rob Coleman and crew had really brought Yoda to life in a way Frank Oz (as amazing as he is) could never have pulled off with the puppet.
Your focus determines your reality.
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On top of that, Gollum essentially has human skin. It's not green like Yoda's which is much more difficult to pull of realistically than Gollum....
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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Originally posted by: Mielr
That final battle scene in TPM with the gungans and the robots made me feel like I was watching a cartoon, rather than a live-action film. I never got that feeling watching any of the OT films.

Some of the fully rendered scenes during the final battle in TPM did indeed look quite unconvincing when I saw the movie in the theater. It brought me out of the moment in the same way traditional effects work with poor compositing, thinck matte lines and poor matching in terms of lighting would have done. Other than that and a few other scenes, I think the CGI effects work for the PT was fine. It wasn't perfect by any means, but for me it got the job done reasonably convincingly. I only wish the rest of the production had done the same.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
Thats why the PT gets so much criticism for being "fake" and "artificial" and "CGI-happy".
Actually, even though I prefer the OOT and by and large disregard the PT films, I don't think the effects work of the original films holds up that well when compared to the IMO reasonably good CGI of the PT. Both have their advantages and disadvantages for sure and both will at times give off some significant clues to the viewer that what is going on at the screen isn't actually real. I have to say though that I find CGI to be far superior at portraying photorealism most of the time (though not always).
A lot of the actual objects and environments are practical elements and models but it doesn't make a difference. The same with all the plates. Most of the BG's and textures are based off real photographed plates but it doesnt seem to have made a difference since there is still an artificiality to it.

I can agree with this, but then again, I think the OOT is full of the same. Even the very opening shot of Star Wars has never quite fooled me, since the matte painting of Tatooine at the bottom of the screen has never looked like real view down on a real planet to my eyes. Does this bother me? It doesn't, because this scene, as well as the rest of the movies, is a medium where fantasy and reality blend to form art and great art at that. There are no sounds in the vacuum of space either, and even though the opening shot of Star Wars is full of just that, it doesn't pull me out of the picture - on the contrary!
The reason why all these methods are used instead of actually filming them is purely cost savings. Its a $250 million movie made for $115 million. The battle of Kashyyk looks like a freaking video game compared to Saving Private Ryan and there was nothing stopping Lucas from achieving the same realism as that film except the fact that it would cost another $5 million.

Personally, I happen to think that what's missing in this scene isn't really the extra touch that would make these CGI scenes to look utterly and convincingly real, but rather the context of a great and epic story with great characters and narrative involvement of the kind that would actually be able to make you feel something.
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Originally posted by: JumpmanAbout matching Oz's performance, is not an excuse. Watch "From Puppet's to Pixels" and listen to the audio commentary of Episode II and Rob Coleman specifically states that after talking with Oz, the animators came to the realization that they technically could go beyond what Oz did, performance wise, but that would be a mistake. He wouldn't be Yoda. They purposely tried to match every move, every nuance that Oz did with that puppet, while "loosening" him up just a tad around the lips.


Jumping around and doing complicated flips like a Kung Fu master is so Original Trilogy Yoda.

Harrison Ford Has Pretty Much Given Up on His Son. Here's Why

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Well, was Yoda not suppose to fight while the Republic and the Jedi Order crumbled around him?

"The reason why all these methods are used instead of actually filming them is purely cost savings. Its a $250 million movie made for $115 million."

And this is the real rub right here. Personally, budgets have gotten way out of control. What Lucas wanted to achieve with the Prequels would've just cost way too much. He had to develop some other way to achieve the results without compromising his vision.

Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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Geez, I didn't think the CG Yoda looked anything like the puppet Yoda, and, like I've said before, it was because of the eyes. And I find it really weird because I've seen the documentaries when they were recreating Yoda scenes in ESB to test the technology, and the CG Yoda I saw on the screen there actually looked like Yoda! But the one they actually used in the movies looks nothing like him. He doesn't have that Freeborn/Einstein eye area that is so instantly recognizable. Even the puppet from TPM did a better job of getting those eyes than the CG Yoda. And in case you didn't know, most of our emotions and recognizability are in that space of our face, and ILM just totally messed it up, even though I've seen them get it right!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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There are plenty of shots in The Two Towers were Weta didn't even get remotely close with blending in Gollum to the environment.

Secondly, Gollum really wasn't very good at all in FOTR.

Gollum was hardly in FOTR. That was rough design of the character, because it didn't need to be fully shown yet.

I think that WETA gave Gollum a great deal of character, thanks in part to Serkis. Really, whatever one's opinion on the films, it's difficult to deny that Gollum is interesting, if nothing else.

With ILM, they tend to get it right 85% of the time.


The nightime scenes in Speilbergs JP films with the T-Rex, anyone? Still looks phenomenal almost a decade and a half later. Same thing with Cameron's T2.

Then again, I might just like LOTR more than the PT.

Originally posted by: auraloffalwaffle
Seriously, the CG Yoda was bound to blend in with the CG sets, wasn't he? The CG Gollum had to be integrated with real location shots. I regard the achievement as being much greater on WETA's part.

As for matching the movements of Oz's puppeteering, I don't buy it. That sounds like an excuse. Hell, they'll probably go in and replace the original with their beloved CG version for next year's SEs anyway...


Didn't Kurtz say that as long as there was breath in his body, he wouldn't let Lucas alter Oz's work in ESB and ROTJ?

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: Jumpman
Well, was Yoda not suppose to fight while the Republic and the Jedi Order crumbled around him?



From watching to Original Trilogy I was always under the impression that Yoda wasn't physically powerful, but intensely mentally powerful.

That was how the original Yoda was... his power was never in jumping and flipping around like a martial artist, it was in being able to flawlessly lift and control something as large as a ship with nothing but a thought. He was supposed to be a tiny, physically weak little creature with an enormous connection with the Force - not a Kung Fu expert.

Harrison Ford Has Pretty Much Given Up on His Son. Here's Why

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Then, there's no other side to Yoda in the Prequels if we've already seen what he can do in his semi-younger days. Lucas had to do somethign to give Yoda a bit more to do. I'm glad he went toe to toe with Sidious. And it cements the reasons why he is the way he is in the Original Trilogy.

And Mike O, I think Weta does deserves alot of credit on Gollum. But, that doesn't change the fact that at times, they didn't get him totally right with interaction in his environment.

That's one of the main reasons why Dennis Murren made it a point of emphasis during his work on Hulk to make sure that Hulk blends in and interacts with his environment and he pulled it off wonderfully with that film.
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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Semi-younger days? Remember this character dies at around 900 years old. So 20-30 years is nothing. The only thing that would make him age faster would be living in the swamps, but even that would be like a drop in the bucket to him. So him being young and vivacious in the PT really isn't thinking too logically. Just like when Lucas tells his actors that Chewbacca is the junior league in ROTS, when that character is over 200 years old in the OT.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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That's one of the main reasons why Dennis Murren made it a point of emphasis during his work on Hulk to make sure that Hulk blends in and interacts with his environment and he pulled it off wonderfully with that film.

True. Utter mess though that film may be, the effects are spectacular.

And Mike O, I think Weta does deserves alot of credit on Gollum. But, that doesn't change the fact that at times, they didn't get him totally right with interaction in his environment.


Fair enough . I'm just saying the PT and ILM have had their share of silmilar problems.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Gaffer,

Now, how many regular fans know the age of the characters or the time period between films? It's never really stated. It is logical to try and make Yoda younger during a different time period, whether it's ten years or thirty years. The idea is in the right place.

Either way, I just don't see how you can have a story about the fall of the Jedi Order and the Republic and not have Yoda do some action....

And Mike O, yes, ILM has. Between the two trilogies, there's just spectacular work across the board. But, if I had to choose, I'm choosing ILM over Weta. There are some shots in the Rings Trilogy that are just unforgiveable. It's the same with Kong. There's less of that in the Prequels or any other film ILM works on. Just look at Pearl Harbor, Minority Report, War of the Worlds.
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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Maybe, but I find LOTR and Kong to be better films overall. What shots are you refering to? The most obvious ones that come to my mind are the Wargs in TTT.

Between the two trilogies, there's just spectacular work across the board.


I must disagree. I think that the PT has the same problem as LOTR: Inconsistency. It too has great and mediocre shot alike. Now, if you wanted to talk about ILM's other work, then I'm more inclined to agree. But I've seen few CG effects as good as the Balrog.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Geez, I didn't think the CG Yoda looked anything like the puppet Yoda, and, like I've said before, it was because of the eyes. And I find it really weird because I've seen the documentaries when they were recreating Yoda scenes in ESB to test the technology, and the CG Yoda I saw on the screen there actually looked like Yoda! But the one they actually used in the movies looks nothing like him. He doesn't have that Freeborn/Einstein eye area that is so instantly recognizable. Even the puppet from TPM did a better job of getting those eyes than the CG Yoda. And in case you didn't know, most of our emotions and recognizability are in that space of our face, and ILM just totally messed it up, even though I've seen them get it right!
I noticed something else about his eyes in the prequel trilogy. They move! The original puppet was so limited that his eyes were able to move in maybe 3 or 4 shots of ESB. Maybe this was improved for ROTJm but for the most part, he just looks like he's staring off into space with his eyes fixed to one point.

On another note, I agree that the CG Yoda doesn't look quite right. He's better than the stoned Yoda puppet from Episode I, but there is still something rather off about his appearance. I'll give props to the animation department though. He just doesn't look like he's really there.

And maybe they should have motion captured Frank Oz's puppet for the animation, if they really wanted authenticity. Though I'm sure Oz was happy not to do Yoda again. The guy was probably thinking during TPM, "What they hell am I doing here? I don't need to crouch under the floor tiles. I'm a successful director now!"

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Mike O,

Wargs. Merry and Pippin on Treebeard. Shots in Kazadum. Numerous riding shots that were reshoots. The entire dinosaur stampede in Kong. I could go on.

I will say this. The Fellowship of the Ring Extended, out of all the new trilogy films that have been out recently, is the best. It's a masterpiece.

I will not comment on Kong.

The Rings Trilogy is more inconsistent but again, I personally see that in all of Weta's work aside from the main visual effect (ie, Kong or Gollum).
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
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I have mixed feeling about Kong. Call me Mike .

Shots in Kazadum.

What about it, exactly? The Balrog is breathtaking. Isn't the bridge mostly minature work?

Merry and Pippin on Treebeard.


What about it? He too was a great character, but which shots are you referencing to? Some were great, others less so.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.”

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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Mike,

In Kazadum where the steps break apart and they have to get across, the comp work isn't good at all, even if they are minatures. It's the same with the closeups of Merry and Pippin on Treebeard. When they go wide on Treebeard, he looks great just as the wide shots on Kazadum are great.

I like the Balrog too...even if you can't make out most of it. But, that's not a knock against it. I mean, they're in a dark environment so you can't change that. Still, I like the Balrog in The Fellowship.
Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.

-Yoda; Episode III Revenge of the Sith.